Last Christmas was our first as a fully distributed team. We’d built the infrastructure for remote work during COVID-19, but this was the first time we’d needed to navigate the cultural rituals of the holiday period — the end-of-year parties, the team celebrations, the shared moments that usually happen in a physical space — without that physical space.
What we discovered was instructive, and it’s changed how we think about culture in a distributed environment.
Culture Doesn’t Require Proximity
The most important thing we learned is that culture doesn’t require physical proximity — but it does require intention. When everyone is in the same office, culture happens somewhat organically: shared lunches, overheard conversations, spontaneous interactions. In a remote environment, those moments need to be deliberately created.
We used Workplace from Facebook to run a virtual advent calendar — each day in December, a different team member shared something about themselves or their family’s holiday traditions. The response was remarkable. People who had worked together for years discovered things about each other they hadn’t known. New team members found their footing more quickly.
Virtual Celebrations
The virtual end-of-year celebration required more effort than a traditional office party, but it delivered something the traditional party often doesn’t: genuine participation from everyone. People weren’t self-conscious about dancing in front of colleagues, weren’t worried about the long drive home, weren’t distracted by the logistics of a physical event.
What This Means for the Future
Remote work isn’t a temporary accommodation — it’s how Telnet will operate going forward. That means continuing to invest in the cultural infrastructure that makes distributed teams thrive. The lessons of our first distributed Christmas will inform how we approach every subsequent milestone.
Culture is a choice. In a remote environment, it’s an explicit choice that requires explicit investment. We’re committed to making that investment.
